I remember in the early days of my Martial Arts training, reading about the habits of the Warrior. To this day, I remain engrossed by the idea of holding oneself to a higher standard, and in living a life uncommonly focused upon self-growth. I was young when I started upon the warriors path; idealistic and impressionable. That didn’t stop me questioning the content and relevance of a dominantly eastern philosophical outlook.
Some things resonated and connected with me even as I discovered them. Others took time, requiring the value of experience and wisdom to find their mark upon me.
Not all knowledge comes to us at the right time; sometimes a pearl of wisdom sits within our unconscious mind until it is met by a more evolved or understanding version of ourselves.
I must have been all of about 16 years old when I read a passage by an Aikido Master describing the waking acts of a Warrior. He eloquently stated that the first process to be carried out upon waking was an honest and objective assessment of the body’s physical condition. Top to bottom, front and back, inside and out.
Before rising from bed; one should have an intellectual evaluation of the aches, pains and injuries suffered through our chosen passions. We should understanding what might hinder, prevent or guide our days training.
The principal was sound; our bodies take a pounding, day in, day out, hitting the mats. Ignoring the side affects of such training would only compound trauma, impact recovery time and be inevitably deleterious to our long-term training.
But the thing is; I didn’t have any injuries. I didn’t feel sore after training or tired in the mornings. I was 16 years old, and even on those rare occasions I was injured; it wasn’t enough to stop me training. I trained for a week with a dislocated shoulder, I was back at the next session after dislocating my ankle and after every broken toe. Seven days a week, hours on end. Youth, and all its rose-tinted benefits, meant I was unable to grasp my own vulnerabilities and limits.
Twenty years later.....I get it!
Shift work, adult pressures and responsibilities, the ravages of youth, and the inexorable flow of time; Wisdom comes from such things.
It took me a while to cotton on; to realise things couldn’t always be the same, to recognise flexibility and recovery time can’t be taken for granted. And in that time, I suffered. Plagued by injuries, stubbornly ignored, I bulled forwards and drove my body beyond its new-found limits. It was ignorance, more than indomitable spirit, but the line between the two is thin. The body, poorly maintained, will atrophy; injury begets injury.
I still feel unstoppable, but in a completely different way. I now work with my body towards whole-health and long-term goals. My injuries have tapered off and in an ironic twist; I no longer feel the vulnerability and fear of my limits.
Not only is a morning assessment necessary to determine our ability and function for the day, it is also a call-to-arms for positive action, to make strong our weaknesses. It is an opportunity to purposefully and consciously guide the course of our lives. A rare moment we can take to be honest with ourselves and recognise the value of deliberate action.
I tore my diaphragmatic muscles last week. Lifting heavy and unsupported, for a fraction of a second I held my breath in a moment of instability. A natural reaction to try and reinforce the strength in the body’s framework. It cost me; I collapsed, unable to breathe, unable to move.
Once upon a time, I would have ignored the injury. Then later in life; it would have made me angry, dysfunctionally aggrieved that my training was going to suffer. But I reflected on the Aikido Master’s article, recognising the wisdom of my training and wider life experiences. I stopped, recovered, and had my partner provide a Warrior’s first aid; massage, gua sha and Zheng gu shui.
Then I got back to the training….so maybe I’m not all that evolved; after all, some lessons need constant revision! I still couldn’t breathe, so I slowed my tempo. I still couldn’t move, so I limited my range of movements to avoid further injury. The point is; I evaluated my aches, pains and injuries, and, as an intellectual Warrior, adjusted my training for the day.
The Aikido Master’s words have come home to roost. A lesson learnt 20 years ago, finally understood.
Komentarji